Ran into an odd one today when setting up a seven acre lake for beaver. This one has a smaller pond running linear parallel with on its upper portion. Maybe 15 feet between the two and of course there were a couple active crossovers to set.
The main pond was pretty flat bottomed and to shallow for a good drowner rod set so they got 330s. The surprise was the other side. First was the water color as it was blackwater with is never seen this far from the coast. I chalk it up to not having an inlet and only an outflow pipe. Next when I went to stick my 10' rod I couldn't find bottom. Where I finally got them stuck was only about four foot out from the waterline and almost vertical. Looking at the soil, a gray slick clay, my guess is I'm dealing with a borrow pit for material to make the dams on this series of lakes. There's three in line on this drainage.
I had to scrape up material to make a ledge for the trap and set for a front foot.

Definitely not the norm for this area.

Those kind of banks are fun. The main river I trap beaver on is like this. Even more fun during the yearly floods

Take a couple photos if you can

If you put yourself a ring of some type for your stake about 20-24" down the rod, you can push the rod straight (angled down slightly) into the steep bank that far, then put your stake in, leaving the bottom of the drowner just hanging out there in the deep water, not stuck in the bottom. They can't tread water long with a big ol trap and rod weighing them down in deep open water.

It'll get real fun if I slip on that clay. That stuff is slicker than snot.

If you can drive close, a heavy weight is my favorite drowning method in those situations. The White River in Northern Wisconsin quickly comes to mind as well as hundreds of lodges that were built on the edge of bogs. Just pin the weight to the bank at water level with short connection to the trap chain. When caught the beaver will always dive and will jerk the weight off the pin and down they go. Done hundreds and it is my favorite way to drown. 10 or 15 foot cable from a stake to the weight.

That would be easy enough. My rods are fiberglass and I use the rings that use a set screw. I can easily swap one over from another rod.

I always jove it when you have to put a stake into the bank to give yourself a foot hold - so that you can attempt to stomp in a trap bed.

Pretty slick, thanks.

Lots of ways to skin a cat. I would attack with a tiling spade from the top. Cut a notch 10-12 inches wide and 18 inches deep into the top of the bank with the bottom of the trench about 6 inches below water level. Set in the trench with the weight just outside the trench. You can do the whole job in your street shoes, including checking and resetting.

We have the same here, you might get a silt or sand covering over top of the clay from the last flood, then it washes off and its not pretty. I usually end up cutting steps on the banks to get up and down. I now have tree climbing and rappelling gear so as long as theres a good tree nearby, i wont go for a swim any more.

Chains and cement blocks work good in those sets, use a spade to dig the channel and trap bed in, Ive never had a shallow set to not have to dig a channel.

What happens with the bags or blocks if there is something in that deep water and they get tangled? Better have your scuba gear. lol

Hate to do this but necessary. I have done this several times on this forum over the past 15 years. A cinder block in water is almost weightless. If more air was forced into the mixture, they would almost float. I am not going to go through the math again but this is fact which you can check for yourself.

Thats why i use feed sacks. They would rip if the bag itself was caught. The cable itself would be a nightmare.

#2 chain (10 - 20') with a brake rotor. Down they go to Davy Jones!

I guess I do not know the diameter of your rebar but I know a big beaver will make that look like a bow tie with 1/2" rebar and most likely he will be sitting on the bank when you get there. Go with a long chain. He will be on the bank when you get there and will not have to carry a bunch of rebar if you use a disposable stake. LLL

I use rods only and A couple jobs I took had 20 ft deep water and steep banks.
I just added bout 30 lbs of weight onto the rods.
Wired rocks/cinder block/steel chunks laying around or in truck and slid them to rods bottom then eased rod into position and attached rod to bank with 2 t-stakes, 1 in the end washer and another a ft down so the T held it in place.
Hung snares on their slides and even made a few slides of my own.
set up 6 like that one place and had 4 waiting the next morning.
caught 2 otters also